Chapter Nine - Paul
As he peered through the cupola at the distant bot, Paul halfway wished he was there looking into the shielding breach. The camera was clear, though not high-definition like the ones they had on Luna. Still, he didn’t need his eyes to see the breach. Thermal imaging was good enough. The satellite was cooling quickly from its daylong sunbath. With every passing second, the breach became clearer—jagged and a good ten centimeters in length. Paul could guess the cause.
“Looks like a debris impact of some type. The shielding around the breach looks stable. Have we any lead plating aboard? At least an inch thick.”
He expected Dana’s voice, but winced when MacLeash rumbled over the microphone. “Yes. How much do you need?”
“A foot square should do it.”
“Don’t have that much.” MacLeash sighed. “We have a few rad blankets.”
Paul brightened. “How many? Standard size?”
“Four.”
Paul detached the bot from the satellite and backed it away. As soon as he could, he pivoted the bot and flew it toward its bay.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Bringing the bot home,” Paul said. “Get those blankets together and meet me in the common area with whatever adhesives you have.”
“You have a plan?”
Paul smiled. “No, just a hunch. But I think we might be able to hold the breach long enough to get the fuel out of the damned thing.”
Dana came on the line, and her voice warmed him. If only things were different. “What do I tell Remnant? They’ll want an explanation.”
The math came easily. “Tell them we need six hours. Two to build the patch, another two to let the adhesives cure—if you have the right stuff aboard—and then two hours to attach it. We should be able to capture it by the time we break out of Earth’s shadow.”
“And what if we don’t have the right adhesive?”
Paul shrugged to himself. “Then ask Remnant if they have it. You were inviting them over anyway, weren’t you? Standard capture party?”
I mean, you are desperately wanting to fight. We might as well get right to it, Paul thought with a grin. The animosity between the entire lot of them was thick enough to cut with a knife, though they needed something more to ignite it. Fire required three things: oxygen, fuel, and a heat source. He had the heat source with the satellite. The fuel was between MacLeash and Harris. And the oxygen was the easy part: get them all in the same place, and with the right gentle puff of “air,” they’d ignite.
Maybe he could salvage more from this situation than he’d thought.
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